Father Joe’s Villages has opened a new day center in East Village to continue providing services to people experiencing homelessness following the closure of the Neil Good Day Center last month.<\/p>\n
The new center, located at 15th and Imperial, opened Oct. 1 on the Father Joe’s Villages campus. The nonprofit, which previously operated the Neil Good Day Center in partnership with the city, is now running the replacement facility independently after San Diego withdrew its funding earlier this year.<\/p>\n
The city’s decision came as officials worked to address a $118 million budget deficit.<\/p>\n
The new center offers many of the same services as its predecessor, including mail service, showers, laundry facilities and connections to resources intended to help people transition out of homelessness.<\/p>\n
Erik Lizarde, who regularly used the former Neil Good Day Center, said the services helped him find a place to sleep and access assistance.<\/p>\n
“They get people off the streets, they get you going, they get you on your feet, and they get you where you need to be,” Lizarde said.<\/p>\n
He said he was able to receive help finding shelter within four days of requesting assistance.<\/p>\n
Deacon Jim Vargas of Father Joe’s Villages said the organization opened the new facility to prevent the services from disappearing after the former center closed.<\/p>\n
“The reality is that if we had not decided to bring the services onto our campus, the day center services would have just gone away,” Vargas said.<\/p>\n
The center can serve up to 200 people daily. Father Joe’s Villages reported serving 7,000 people at the former location near 17th and K streets last year alone.<\/p>\n
Vargas said access to an address of record and mail service can help people experiencing homelessness maintain contact with agencies and connect with additional assistance. The facility also provides basic necessities such as showers and laundry.<\/p>\n
Renovating the new center cost more than $120,000. Its annual operating budget is approximately $1.1 million.<\/p>\n
Although the city is no longer providing funding, community support has helped Father Joe’s Villages cover the financial gap, according to Vargas. The organization will need continued assistance to sustain the services in the coming year.<\/p>\n
“We have a community that believes in our work, and they see the impact that we’re having, and so I’m really hopeful, God willing, we’ll make up that gap so we want to continue the services,” Vargas told CBS 8.<\/p>\n
In addition to its regular operations, the new day center can serve as an inclement-weather shelter when needed. The facility has 134 cots available for that purpose and was used during Tropical Storm Rachel a few weeks ago.<\/p>\n
The shelter capacity provides an additional resource during periods of severe weather, when people experiencing homelessness may be particularly vulnerable to rain and other hazardous conditions.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Father Joe’s Villages has opened a new day center in East Village to continue providing services to people…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":501946,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[74,76,75],"class_list":["post-501945","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-diego","tag-san-diego","tag-san-diego-headlines","tag-san-diego-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/501945","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=501945"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/501945\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/501946"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=501945"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=501945"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=501945"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}